Mobile operators in Malaysia and Thailand actively use number portability for subscriber acquisition

Published: 2017-07-24

This article focuses on some examples of subscriber acquisition offers of selected mobile operators, especially in Malaysia and Thailand where mobile number portability (MNP) is possible. We first provide an overview of the mobile markets in key Asia Pacific countries (i.e. Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, otherwise known as “ASEAN 6 majors”) and then highlight the key development factors especially on the postpaid segment. Afterwards, we zoom into some mobile offers coursed via MNP. Finally, we provide an outlook for the mobile segment in the next few years in light of the developments detected.

As subscriber acquisition encompasses several aspects, we focus specifically on the operators’ current mobile offers explicitly targeting existing customers of other operators. These offers typically entice customers with a list of service benefits once they change networks using MNP. Please note that we do not claim that the list of offers included here is exhaustive although we tried to cover what we believe are the major existing offers from different large providers as of 20th July 2017.